Roach killer powder works on humans, too!

[EnumaElish]

AFAIK, boric acid is most commonly sold as a roach killer, although apparently it has many other more benign uses. I happen to know that it works pretty well on common fungi that appear around sweaty human joints.

Wikipedia says it's used to control uranium fission in nuclear plants.

Has anyone used it as a fire repellent?

wikipedia writes: "boric acid is poisonous if taken internally or inhaled in large quantities. However, it is generally considered to be not much more toxic than table salt."

So far so good...

But then, in the same paragraph, wikipedia says: "5 to 20 g/kg has produced death in adult humans."

How exactly do they know that, any guesses?

[X-files theme playing in the background...]

 

[rewebster]

"But then, in the same paragraph, wikipedia says: "5 to 20 g/kg has produced death in adult humans."

well, it quite a bit of boric acid, figuring 50 to 100 kg for the weight of a person

 

[Moonbear]

Either the wiki article is mistaken and is reporting the predicted lethal dose for humans (perhaps an extrapolation from other toxicity data from lower dose poisonings, and/or from animal toxicology studies), or someone decided to commit suicide by eating a whole box of the stuff.

 

[rewebster]

yeah---or, some one thinking in an altered state of mind---'I'll try any white powder'